Author: amy

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Celebrating the Holy Spirit

The Front Bar at La Factoria in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. A bar lined with seats, a mirror on the back wall.
1 Corinthians 12:11 (ESV)—All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

At first, La Factoria seems to be a hole-in-the-wall bar, dimly lit with a few tables pressing against a side wall, a pair of booths along the back wall, and Latin music playing from the speakers. However, step back one room, and people sit at a wine bar, chatting while listening to percussive rhythms. Wander into the next room and dancers vie for a spot on the salsa-dancing floor while a live band plays. Roam through another door and dancers move to electronic beats in a night-club-like setting, and finally, venture through the crowds to the very last bar and find a more intimate setting with seating for ten.

Though each bar has its own rhythm, La Factoria as a whole “celebrates the mix of old and contemporary that defines Puerto Rico as a bridge between Latin and Anglo American cultures” (https://lafactoriavsj.com). Likewise, each spiritual gift, or “[variety] of service,” uniquely celebrates the Holy Spirit with “the same Lord” empowering each spiritual gift (1 Corinthians 12:5).

This bridge of empowerment of which Paul spoke connects believers to a community that celebrates the body of Christ. Indeed, our celebration of the Holy Spirit extols the glory of God’s plan and encourages others believers. Moreover, the body of Christ benefits each time we use our spiritual gifts.

So, whether we’re listening to music in a quiet room or salsa dancing on a black-and-white floor, our gifts laud the best of what the Holy Spirit has to offer us.

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Obeying the One

Buildings in Old San Juan 
1 Corinthians 3:5 (ESV)—What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

“Waffles and tea, that’s our kind of place!” I showed my husband the restaurant on the Tripadvisor app.

The next morning, I used the location in the app to find the restaurant…only to arrive at an Asian restaurant. My growling stomach pushed us onward to a second address, procured from the establishment’s website…another misdirection into the heart of Old San Juan. The hunt for a third address, plucked from Yelp or a similar site on the internet (it’s hard to remember), also proved the restaurant elusive.

After this, I gave up.

“Let’s eat here.” I pointed to a random restaurant.

The Corinthians had a similar problem, but instead of searching for a restaurant, they sought someone to put their faith in. Some pointed to Paul and others to Apollos, depending on who’d baptized them. Because of their choice to follow one man, they lacked spiritual growth.

To experience the thrill of growing in spiritual maturity today, we follow the One. We seek God’s wisdom, and the Holy Spirit teaches us discernment. We tend to our role in his name, and our vine bears fruit.

These words sound simple: obey and grow. However, obedience can be difficult. It is choosing to serve him, for every second, of every day, throughout our life. When we seek him first though, we find the benefits of obedience to God and recognize the futility of trusting in a one rather the One.

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Building With Care

Buildings in Old San Juan with metal balconies, wooden shutters on the windows, and various colors of paint, orange, aqua, light blue, lighter blue, and pink.
1 Corinthians 3:8–9 (ESV)—He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

A neighborhood restaurant sat alongside a couple of bars, a bakery, and barricaded buildings in the San Agustin neighborhood of San Juan. A stroll a few blocks north or south to the main roads revealed gas stations and everyday businesses. A twenty-plus-minute walk west to Old San Juan showed restaurants, nightlife, ice cream shops, and chocolate bars.

After witnessing this shift, I began to think Puerto Rico builds from the outside in. And that makes sense, to first build up the tourist areas—their livelihood.

I think they are building with care, like Paul told the Corinthians to. He explained his role as a builder of foundations and the people’s role to build on that foundation. In other words, he shared the news of salvation with the Corinthians and told them that they had a responsibility to perform their role and that the quality of their work mattered.

According to Paul, spiritual growth starts on the outside with shedding worldly ways. Without shedding these, we are still built on the foundation of Christ, but paying more attention to our worldly efforts doesn’t move us toward Christ. Putting in the effort to develop our God-given role benefits ourselves as well as others, for everything God does through the church helps all. Our responsibility is to perform our role to the best of our ability, with the tools he gives us, in the world we live in.

We can think of developing our role in Christ like developing a tourist destination with restaurants and shops. The beauty of the building draws people in. The excellent customer service and good food keep them coming back. When this succeeds, more buildings can be constructed farther into the city, all on the foundation of Christ.

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Bringing God Into Focus

An overexposed photo of a waterfall
Galatians 6:1 (ESV)—Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

I love experimenting with my camera, especially using long exposure with waterfalls. Usually, though, I’m somewhere midday when it’s too bright outside for this type of photography. The photo becomes overexposed, and no amount of photo editing can fix it.

The risk of overexposure comes with a person caught in sin, too. Paul did not suggest yelling at them in public or ignoring the sin out of love. He suggested gently restoring the person.

How do we do this? We act on God’s Word. We allow our actions to shine the light on God and not on the person’s sin. Our goal is to restore with grace and not judgment.

One way to achieve this is to carry the burden of our fellow sinners—a great example of loving your neighbor as yourself. For instance, offers of forgiveness and comfort can balance critical comments from others and can enhance the person’s mental health.

Above all, a show of “love [that] binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:14, ESV) brings God into focus for the person we are helping as well as for ourselves.

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Pressing on Toward Hope

A winding mountain road shrouded in clouds.
Exodus 5:7 (ESV)—“The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

The arrow on the GPS screen bounced like a Ping-Pong ball. It faced north, then south, then east and west. It located my husband and I on at least three different Chicago streets. We needed only the one direction, the way to the interstate. We drove onward until the arrow meandered along the blue line for blocks at a time.

Moses and Aaron, too, pressed onward to travel to the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God. Like our route, their route to exodus from Egypt included a few trials. Pharaoh’s sorcerers and magicians repeated God’s signs—a staff into a snake, the plague of blood, the plague of frogs—to Moses and Aaron. Even once Pharaoh’s people couldn’t repeat the signs, Pharaoh reverted his promise to release Moses and Aaron along with the Israelites into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God.

However, God had a plan for these signs and wonders: irrefutable proof of his sovereign reign.

In the trials of everyday life, the route we travel is not perfectly mapped out. Road blocks force a change of direction. Fog makes it hard to see where we’re going. Severe weather stops our trip altogether. Yet God is always leading us toward his truth during these uncertainties, toward hope.

To walk toward hope, we cannot harden our hearts as did Pharaoh. Instead, we can open our hearts to God’s divine direction and seek irrefutable proof of his sovereign reign.

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Living for God’s Glory

A street in Rothenburg, Germany, with a tower at the end of the street. People walk along the street and cars are parked in the street.
1 Peter 4:12 (ESV)—Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

To plan a trip, I peruse tourism websites. Sites chock-full of pristine photos showing car-free streets and no crowds. “Perfect,” I think. But then I arrive and, while wielding my camera, I mutter, “Why can’t they get out of my shot?”

The early believers thought of Christianity like the pristine photos: the beauty of an eternal reward with no suffering. Peter explained, though, that Jesus suffered for their salvation and they, too, must live for God’s glory.

Living through these sufferings builds our Christ-like character. These tribulations add authenticity to our lives, like the people and cars make our vacation photos more real. We need not be surprised when our lives intersect with people whose lives contradict our beliefs.

Through God’s glory, we learn to love these people as Jesus did. We learn to not wish away our sufferings and instead to rejoice in God’s goodness and live for him during our trials.

A street with colorful buildings in Old San Juan. Cars are parked on the street.
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Writing for God

I please God with my writing
Psalm 19:14 (ESV)—Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Let’s pray this verse

  • when we feel discouraged in our writing progress,
  • when we receive a rejection,
  • when we have a message to share but not the words to put on paper,

or

  • when we write with ease,
  • when we make the biblical connection in hours rather than days, and
  • when we receive an acceptance.

May we strive for our words to be acceptable in God’s sight.

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Seeking the Breath of God

Bighorn sheep eating grass on the roadside at Badlands National Park
Acts 17:26–27 (ESV)—And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

The bighorn sheep in Badlands National Park stood at the roadside. They munched on grass, not a care in the world about the human snapping photos from up the road.

Later in the day, while flipping through the photos on the camera screen, I noticed something. The bighorn sheep had collars around their necks, GPS tracking devices that allow for monitoring the species.

Thankfully, God created us with his own breath and not a tracking device. This mark is God’s promise he’ll guide us when we seek him.

To seek God, we choose not to weary ourselves with human ideas. Perfection. Individualism. Money. Fame. Ideas with no end result or outcomes that fade with time.

We choose, instead, to simply pray to the God who remains with us and controls the universe and all that is in it.

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Listening Then Submitting

Isaiah 55:2 (ESV)—Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

My husband and I sat on old theater seats in the back of a listening room in Nashville’s Gulch neighborhood. When the bluegrass band stepped onto the stage and the leader spoke into the microphone, a hush settled over the room. After introductions, they began to play.

My body responded to the rhythm. My head bopped; my toes tapped. I not only listened to the music but also allowed it to feed my spirit.

I think this feeling translates well to the verse for today. When we go into a listening room with God, he quenches our spiritual thirst with the rhythms of the Holy Spirit, the “rich food.”

To continue to partake in the rich food requires us to continue seeking his will and acting in obedience when he speaks. We first listen to God’s voice then submit to the rhythms of the Holy Spirit.

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Gathering in Christ’s Name

A gathering of prairie dogs in Prairie Dog Town at Devils Tower National Monument
A prairie dog peeking out of its burrow
A prairie dog standing on its hind legs
Acts 10:33 (ESV)—"So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

They stand on mounds of dirt, stick their heads out of burrows, and generally scamper about the grassy field known as Prairie Dog Town. I lift my camera and aim the lens at the prairie dog peeking out of its burrow. Another sits yards away, chewing on the grass. Still another sits upright, head moving side to side as if in search of danger.

Without this keystone creature, the ecosystem at Devils Tower National Monument and nearby Badlands National Park could collapse. The black-footed ferret could starve without its meal of prairie dog, burrowing owls couldn’t claim abandoned prairie dog burrows for homes, and the grass would grow tall and prevent other plants from sprouting.

Likewise, without the keystone of community, the wheels of Christianity could stop turning. Without gatherings, there is no listening, no sharing. Without the exchange of information, truth remains hidden in the shadows.

For Simon Peter, an invitation to share the gospel turned into a learning experience when the truth came out of the shadows. He recognized salvation was not only for Jews but also for Gentiles—for everyone!

For sure, gathering in Christ’s name causes the wheels of Christianity to move. Community creates a space of listening and learning, of sharing and hearing—a place where God reveals truth.